CITIC Capital and Caixin Global Led Consortium Announces Full Exit from its Investment in Leading Market Intelligence Provider, ISI Emerging Markets Group

(Hong Kong, 16 November 2020) CITIC Capital Holdings Limited (“CITIC Capital”) announced today that a consortium led by its private equity arm and Caixin Global has agreed to a full exit from its investment in ISI Emerging Markets Group (“ISI”) through a sale to Montagu, a leading European private equity firm. Completion of the sale is expected next month, subject to customary closing requirements.
ISI Emerging Markets Group is a leading provider of critical, hard-to-obtain macroeconomic, company and industry digital intelligence for the emerging markets. Subsequent to the carve-out from Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc in 2018 led by CITIC Capital and Caixin Global, the two brands CEIC and EMIS, were successfully integrated under ISI Emerging Markets Group, providing access to 220 million pieces of content from over 6,000 high-quality sources and available in over 15 languages to customers across the globe.

Yichen ZHANG, Chairman & CEO of CITIC Capital said: “We are delighted to have supported ISI’s management team through a period of strong financial performance and organizational development. During our investment, we worked closely with the team to continue to expand ISI’s technology capabilities, product offering and organization, and to deliver robust growth in its subscription numbers, revenue and profitability. With the support from CITIC Capital and Caixin Global, the company also expanded its sales network and enhanced its data coverage, particularly in the rapidly growing China market. ISI has successfully built a resilient business as proven in the global pandemic environment.”
He added: “ISI is another great example of how we unlock value in carve-out deals. Having completed seven carve-outs in recent years, we moved quickly to fully integrate and realize significant synergies between the CEIC and EMIS businesses. We believe the company is well on track to deliver significant future growth.”

HU Shuli, Chairwoman of Caixin Global said: “In the changing world and amid China’s opening of its capital markets, Caixin is devoted to building a financial information and data platform based in China with global impact. Our cooperation with ISI during this time has been effective, particularly as we have brought CEIC deeper into the Chinese market, and brought new opportunities for its development and operation on mobile platforms. We will continue to keep working with ISI and develop the good relationship. Meanwhile, Caixin will continue investing and empowering global data and research institutions. ”

ISI, alongside Focus Media, Omnivision and UCO, is one of the TMT companies invested in by CITIC Capital Partners. These companies have outperformed despite the pandemic. CITIC Capital believes that this space is one of the most active and exciting sectors in China, and will continue to invest in and to focus on opportunities in this area.
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Note: HSBC is acting as sole financial adviser and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher UK and White & Case are acting as legal advisers to CITIC Capital on the transaction.

About ISI Emerging Markets Group
ISI Emerging Markets Group has been providing world class data, analysis, and research on emerging markets for over 25 years. ISI is comprised of two brands, CEIC and EMIS, which provide critical macroeconomic, company, and industry information under a subscription-based model. ISI has over 540 employees based in 19 offices across the globe.

About CITIC Capital
Founded in 2002, CITIC Capital Holdings Limited is an alternative investment management and advisory company. The firm manages over USD32 billion of capital across 100 funds and investment products through its multiple asset class platform covering private equity, real estate, structured investment & finance, and asset management. CITIC Capital has over 150 portfolio companies that span 11 sectors and employ over 770,000 people around the world.

CITIC Capital’s private equity arm, CITIC Capital Partners, focuses on control buyout opportunities globally and has completed over 70 investments since inception across China, Japan, U.S., Europe, etc. CITIC Capital Partners currently manages USD7.6 billion of committed capital. For more information, please visit www.citiccapital.com.

About Caixin Global
Caixin Global is one of the most respected sources of macroeconomic, financial and business intelligence on China. Built on Caixin Media’s award winning journalism, Caixin Global delivers fast, reliable business and financial news about China to the world. It offers its English news via a 24/7 digital and mobile platform (caixinglobal.com), and runs a print magazine.
Caixin Global also has an intelligence arm that offers policy analysis, industry monitoring, in-depth research and financial databases with insight into China’s economic policy-making and its financial markets. It organizes a series of high-level global events, including Caixin Roundtables and the Caixin Summit. For more information, please visit www.caixinglobal.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Cindy TAM
Director, Corporate Relations
CITIC Capital Holdings Limited
Tel: +852 3710 6813
cindytam@citiccapital.com

Irene GAO
Senior Associate, Corporate Relations
CITIC Capital Holdings Limited
Tel: +852 3710 6814
irenegao@citiccapital.com
irenegao@citiccapital.com